Why you care: History, for one thing. Ural Thomas
is proof that at one time, the whitest city in America not only had soul
but bred it, too. Starting out in the late 1950s singing doo-wop on
Portland street corners, Thomas cut a series of hot-shit R&B 45s on
his own label in the ’60s, showcasing his roughed-up,
been-through-some-stuff voice. He appeared at the Apollo Theater in
Harlem dozens of times, opening for the likes of Stevie Wonder and Otis
Redding, and seemed poised for a national breakthrough. Then, as often
happens, things derailed. A manager ripped him off, an old collaborator
betrayed him—allegedly taking Thomas’ recordings to L.A. and pawning
them off as his own—and by the mid-’70s he had moved back to his old
North Portland neighborhood, where he’s lived ever since, hosting weekly
public jam sessions in his garage. But Thomas isn’t content just being
an artifact. No doubt spurred by the so-called “soul revival” of the
last few years, and by his appearance in Wheedle’s Groove, a
documentary on the forgotten Seattle funk band, Thomas re-emerged,
recording a new album in 2010. Now he’s got a new band, the Pain, and is
performing more regularly. Thomas is a vital link to Portland’s past,
but he’s playing in the present, and gazing toward the future.